If your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected

The sleep and wake behavior of your Mac is affected by its settings and activity from your apps, network, and connected devices.

If your Mac goes to sleep unexpectedly

Make sure that Energy Saver is set up the way you want: choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Energy Saver. Adjust one or more of the following controls to affect when your Mac goes to sleep. Some of these controls might not be available on your Mac.

"Turn display off after" slider

"Display sleep" slider

"Computer sleep" sliderIf a slider is set to "Never," sleep is disabled for that feature.

Moving your mouse pointer to a hot corner can put your Mac to sleep, depending on your Mission Control settings. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Mission Control. Click the Hot Corners button, then see if any of the corners are set to "Put Display to Sleep."

Any app or other process that's running on your Mac could also be keeping your Mac awake. Check the Energy Saver pane of Activity Monitor to identify apps that need your Mac to be awake. If "Yes" appears in the Preventing Sleep column for an app, your Mac won't automatically sleep while the app is running. Other apps prevent sleep only when doing certain things, such playing music or video, printing, or downloading files.

If you started from macOS Recovery on a Mac notebook, automatic sleep is disabled as long as the Mac is using AC power.

If the previous steps don't work

Disconnect external devices other than your Apple keyboard, mouse, and display. If that resolves the issue, gradually reconnect your devices, testing each time, until you find the device that is interfering with sleep. Then check the documentation that came with the device, or contact the device manufacturer.

Start up in Safe Mode to see if the issue is related to non-Apple startup items, login items, or kernel extensions.